The present invention relates to a process for preparing granular sorbic acid.
Sorbic acid has excellent antifungal activity and nontoxicity, and has been effectively employed as a preservative for foods such as a fish-paste product, cheese or butter. However, when a powder of sorbic acid is employed in such a use, workability is not so good in comparison with granule. For instance, the fine power is easy to scatter in handling, and also troubles may occur upon wrapping or transportation.
For the purpose of solving such problems, it has been proposed to granulate the powdery sorbic acid. As a preferred granule, it is required to be so rigid that the granule is not broken away even under load or friction during transportation, and to be easily powdered by a mechanical action such as agitation or blending and to be uniformly dispersed into foods when the granule is added to foods, especially foods containing large amount of water upon blending, such as a fish-paste product, cheese or butter. Also, it is desirable that the granule is prepared in high yield.
It is proposed in Japanese patent publication No. 31091/1974 to granulate powdery sorbic acid by admixing sorbic acid with potassium sorbate. There is also proposed in Japanese patent disclosure No. 83324/1975 a process of granulating crystalline sorbic acid having a relatively large particle size. According to these knowm processes, granular sorbic acid having sufficient rigidity can be efficiently prepared, but the obtained granule is hard to be powdered by a mechanical action such as agitation or blending and cannot be uniformly dispersed into foods when it is added to foods such as a fish-paste product, cheese or butter and is blended. Therefore, there has been desired a process for preparing granular sorbic acid having more improved properties.